


desolation in the midwest

by ssstrychnine



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Multi, Post-Canon, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 18:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11363526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/ssstrychnine
Summary: motels and caves and east african grey crowned cranes





	desolation in the midwest

Blue Sargent counts seventeen windmills in one day. Seventeen windmills and three water towers and a small town called Coolsville, with two post offices and nothing else. She convinces a passerby to take their picture in front of the “Welcome to Coolsville” sign and Henry looks exactly like someone who used to be a model and Gansey actually does double thumbs up and Blue pulls the fingers with both hands. When the next town they come across is called Guysville, Blue can’t quite believe it, and she makes them do the same thing all over again, though no one is complaining.

It’s not that she’s bored. She is in a car that isn’t destroying the environment and she’s with two people she is a little bit more in love with every day and all of them have nothing but time ahead of them. Nothing but time and space and whatever else you need to get comfortable with the different things your life might turn into. But there are an awful lot of windmills and an awful lot of water towers and an awful lot of towns with nothing but post offices. Blue thought her emergence into the world would be different. Perhaps Virginia and Ohio look the same. Perhaps everywhere looks the same in the summer. Perhaps she just thought it was never going to happen at all.

“I’m going to make a coffee table book,” she announces to the car, squinting into the sunset. “A blurry picture of every windmill we drive past.”

“Cross-country windmills,” says Henry.

“Windmills in motion,” says Gansey.

“Desolation in the Midwest,” sighs Blue. “I found a website that calls the US-50 the loneliest road.”

“Only the bits in Nevada,” says Gansey. “They’re proud of it, there are signs everywhere.”

“Do the signs say it’s hypnotically repetitive? Because this website does. Also, my eyes.”

“Ganseyboy,” says Henry, “are we sure we’re being our best selves?”

They are not sure, but it’s getting late so they stop at a crappy motel, one of an infinite number of crappy motels, and they lie on one of the beds together. Henry points out constellations in the water stains on the ceiling. Gansey scrolls through endless tripadvisor pages on his phone. He calls out anything that might pull them out of hypnotically repetitive and Blue and Henry veto the places they don’t want to go. Gansey and Blue fight about whether they should go to the Columbus Zoo.

“It’s non-profit,” says Gansey. “They’re very involved in conservation.”

“It’s a _ prison _ ,” says Blue.

Gansey wins this argument by showing Blue pictures of the zoo’s Arctic foxes and kiwis and otters. She thinks it’s unfair of him, using things fluffy and cute as ammunition, but she also, sort of, a little bit, admires him for it. He knows her weaknesses. She thinks she might rubbing off on him. She folds her arms across her chest so he knows that she’s not happy about it and he smiles at her like sunshine and it’s done. When they do get to the zoo she is enamoured by everything and she doesn’t try very hard to hide it. She gets Henry a toy, a small, plastic figurine of an East African grey crowned crane.

“Their hair is almost as good as yours,” she says.

Ohio quickly stops seeming desolate. Or Blue stops pretending she finds it desolate. There are forests and waterfalls and caves that make her feel small and young and lucky. There are things more than water towers and windmills. She takes a picture of Gansey, standing in the hollow trunk of an enormous sycamore tree, eyes shaded, looking up to the tallest point, more than one hundred feet above them. She takes a picture of Henry, arm slung around Gansey’s shoulders, caught in the middle of an expansive gesture, the sort that seems to include the whole world. She (begrudgingly) lets Henry use the selfie stick, because he has the longest arms, to take pictures of all of them, haloed by the endless blue of the sky.

Parts of the Hocking hills forest remind her of Cabeswater. Curved rock pools, the spidery shadows of leaves, points of light in the darkness, so bright they almost seem solid. She holds out a hand and lets the light puddle in her palm. She thinks that Noah would like to do this, catch something as bright and insubstantial as he was sometimes. In a cave, Henry yells in Korean, the sound of his voice echoing around them, like there are one hundred Henry Chengs.

“What are you saying?” Gansey asks.

“A traditional Korean song,” says Henry, grinning. “It’s called Gee.”

Gansey frowns but doesn’t say anything and later Henry plays them the song, at another crappy motel with another sky full of water stains, and they listen to it a hundred times in a row. Henry teaches them to pronounce the lyrics properly so they can sing it together and they stumble over every word. Blue tries out the dance but can’t get the bit with the knees right. There are high points of colour on Henry’s cheeks and his hair is extra spiky and Blue is reminded again, rather giddily, that he used to model.

Impulsively, she hugs him, and he is still for a moment but then his arms come up around her back and she can feel his breath messing up her hair. Gansey is watching them with a strange expression on his face, like he’s halfway to realising something important. Blue thinks she has realised it already and she pulls away from Henry, but only to bring Gansey closer. She hugs them both to her like she had once done with Noah and Adam, like they exist to keep her warm, like they are three and will always be three. She rubs her cheek on Gansey’s sleeve, she holds Henry’s hand, presses her fingertips to his knuckles. She finds she can’t speak, can’t do much but keep them close. Bubblegum pop is still playing and there are stars on the ceiling, made from water stains, and she can feel Henry’s heartbeat where their wrists are touching.

“I think,” she says, finally, “that we should go to Cedar Point.”

“Will you win me a prize?” asks Henry.

“I don’t think you’re tall enough for any of the rides,” says Gansey.

Blue’s hold on Gansey tightens. She considers kicking him in the shin but decides against it. She kisses him on the cheek instead and he smiles and she kisses Henry too and his eyes get crinkly at the corners. Blue thinks that both of her boys are quite charming, when they’re not trying to be. She thinks she’ll win them teddy bears and giant lollipops. She thinks that if she really can’t go on any of the rides she’ll burn the whole place down.

There are days when she can’t stand them. When all she sees is grass and windmills and water towers. When Henry says something a little bit too perceptive. When Gansey says something a little bit too obtuse. There are days when the car is silent, days when Blue puts her headphones in to tune them out, days when she misses her mum so much she can’t see straight. Or she misses Noah or Persephone, which is different, a different way of missing. But most of the time they are everything she wants. Most of the time they fit around her like they were made to. Most of the time they are light filtered through trees or the sound of the school bell ringing at the end of the day or the soft edges of Maura’s tarot cards. Most of the time she loves them.

**Author's Note:**

> another thing from [tumblr](http://oneangryshot.tumblr.com/post/144575189112) lol. [also gee is a masterpiece for real](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7mPqycQ0tQ). thank you for reading!


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